Israel Faces Increasing Danger As Assad Weakens

In July 2011 Israeli President Shimon Peres said that "Assad
must go."

But Syria's southern neighbor is facing an increasingly dangerous
situation on its borders as the rule of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad weakens.

“Israel will miss the Assads,” a veteran
intelligence source
told The London Times. In reference to keeping peace in the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights he added: “The Assads, father and
son, were very nasty people. But with them, we knew that a
promise was a promise, and an agreement was solid as the boulders
of Mount Hermon.”

As the Syrian civil war continues into its 23rd
month,Israel isconsidering creating
a buffer zone reaching up to 10 miles inside Syriato secure the 47-mile border against the threat of
Islamic radicals in the area.

Ranaan Gissin, who served as senior advisor to Israel’s former
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, upped the ante when he told
Al-Arabiya that "Revolutionary Guards [IRGC] from Iran,
Hezbollah and other global jihads groups are taking control over
some parts of the border" as Assad deploys his resources
elsewhere.

Despite the increasing danger, Israel is not about to switch
sides in the conflict.

Officials
told UPI and
The Times of London that Israel is considering further
airstrikes in the area, including one on an Iranian electronic
listening post in the Golan Heights.

At the end of the day, Israel wants to see Assad fall because it
would weaken Iran.

"There is no doubt that the very falling of this central
link in the Iranian array is a blow to Iran and Hezbollah, and
something Iran is doing everything to prevent,"a
senior security official
told Agence France-Press.

In August an IRGC member told The Wall Street
Journalthe
Quds force—the foreign operations arm of the IRGC—is
sending soldiers to Syria because "fighting for Syria is an
integral part of keeping the Shiite Crescent intact,"
referring to the geographical link between Shiites from Iran,
Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.